Topics in German Media Theory & History: “Signal to Noise: Modernity & the Acoustic”

Acoustic issues have become central to fields such as media studies, literature, art and art history, architecture and cultural theory, serving as a testing ground for anxieties and hopes about the consequences of key socio-political shifts (globalism, digitization, etc.). Analyzing the role of sound within histories of (post-)modernity, this seminar will examine technologies of production, transmission and reception; the geo-political roles and uses of sonic materials; the dynamics of social and individual modalities of acoustic experience, and the challenges posed by sound to the theoretical hegemony of certain models of “representation.”